


Untold Stories

by mari4212



Category: Hand of Isis - Jo Graham
Genre: Backstory, Character Study, Gen, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-20
Updated: 2013-11-20
Packaged: 2018-01-02 03:56:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1052242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mari4212/pseuds/mari4212
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What Asetnefer never told Iras and Charmian</p>
            </blockquote>





	Untold Stories

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Settiai](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Settiai/gifts).



I was born a free girl of Upper Egypt, near to where the Nile was born. My father was a scribe, sober and careful enough in his work, but careless and laughing otherwise. It was always Iras, my mother, who planned for our future and who kept the family on a budget more resembling our income than my father’s grand ideas. Their arguments on money aside, it was a happy enough childhood, as such things are counted. I had no great cares or worries until after my tenth year. Until the death of my mother.

Father and I had never been close. Perhaps it was because I was a daughter, and while that was less of a disappointment in the Black Lands than it was in other nations, it was still not what a father wishes for his only child. Perhaps it was a simpler matter, that even as a child I was more my mother’s daughter, calm and self-sufficient, with no need for my father to also be my great hero. He was ever one to love best where he felt most desired.

My mother’s death did nothing to bring us closer together. We each of us retreated to our own pain, and neither took much notice of the other. Perhaps that was a mistake of mine, for in my own retreat I missed the signs my mother would have seen. Certainly in the first few years that followed, I regretted that mistake bitterly. But time changes one, and shapes each new perspective. I would not now give up my life for that of the freeborn girl I was before, or for the simpler life she might have had.

As I have said, my father had always been careless of money, thinking little of spending whatever he had while he had it. After my mother’s death, he grew more reckless. And like so many other reckless men before him, when money grew too short he turned to gambling, more confident in his luck than he should have been. When the debts came due and his creditors took me in payment, he regretted it. At the time, I was not so willing to forgive and understand him as I perhaps am now. 

I was twelve when I was sold into slavery, and fourteen when my then master took me to Alexandria and gave me to Pharaoh’s court. I was assigned to the household staff and found that I enjoyed my work there. There is a good deal of satisfaction in being set to tasks which you are skilled in, and in accomplishing them with ease. I grew to be content in the palace at Alexandria. Content, and sometimes even happy.  
When I was eighteen Pharaoh first took notice of me and asked for me. He had seen me at my duties, and thought me fair enough to please him. 

I went, of course. We in the Black Lands know our duty, and one does not say no to Pharaoh without good reason, nor without consequences. He was pleasant enough, kind and thoughtful in his own way, a man who found pleasure in giving as well as receiving attentions. Even so, I was glad when he tired of me after a month and moved on to other women. I obeyed him as my Pharaoh, but he was never my love. 

Soon after Pharaoh tired of me, I found that I was with child. My son was my first unalloyed joy since the death of my mother, and I exulted in each new step, each childish smile, each giggle and new word he produced. 

I have no words for what I felt the day he died. I had been assigned to help with cleaning and preparing the largest banquet hall for the feast that evening, and my son was just old enough to be in the way of all of us, and too young to be set to any helpful task. One of the youngest serving girls was set to watch him and the other children around his age in the nearest courtyard. We had just finished setting the couches in order when we heard her scream.

I fell into grief beyond comprehension. I cannot pretend that I ever forgave the serving girl for her distraction, or that I cared much for what happened to her after she was sold onwards. Isis have compassion for her, I still cannot. 

It was Phoebe who set me on the path to healing. Phoebe, and Pharaoh. Phoebe was brought to Alexandria and given to Pharaoh two years after my son’s death. The head of the household staff assigned me to guide her, to show her how things were to be done in the grand palace. 

Phoebe was as lighthearted and joyful as the butterflies she was named for. Though she had been born free, as I had, and was now further away from her homeland than I would ever be, she was not sorrowful or angry at her fate. She marveled at Egypt and Alexandria, and in her wonder made me adore it anew as well. 

Pharaoh spotted us in our work one day, and stopped to admire the view, golden Phoebe against my dusky skin and black hair. I recognized the look in his eyes, the appreciation of some new form of beauty to be beheld. Phoebe seemed to understand it just as quickly, though I believe for her it was the recognition of a kindred soul, as she too had an eye for beauty and a knack for seeing it in each person she met and enjoyed. 

It was not long before Pharaoh summoned us to his bed. Again, I went out of duty, and with a half-formed wish for Pharaoh to give me another child. Phoebe did not go to him out of simple duty, nor did she seem to long for a child of her own. She went for the joy of the experience, for the chance to meet her match in love and audacity, I believe. 

You know well the story from here. I conceived first, and rejoiced in the birth of a daughter, for a son would have been too painful a reminder of the son I had lost. A few months after, the queen bore her last child, Cleopatra, though I was barely aware of it in the midst of those first few months of Iras’s life and my continuing duties. Phoebe gave birth last, naming her daughter Charmian before she died, and I took up Phoebe’s daughter upon my breast alongside my own.

Three sisters, born in a palace by the sea. How could their lives not entwine?


End file.
